Men of America/Roar of the Dragon RKO Double Feature (DVD)

Some of the Old West lives on in a tiny 1932 California town until machine gun-toting gangsters take refuge there. Future Hopalong Cassidy hero Bill Boyd stars in Men of America as a rancher who defends tiny Paradise Valley against those machine-gunning killers. Vaudeville's Charles "Chic" Sale, playing the kind of vinegary old-timer that wash is specialty, portrays the aging ex-Pony Express rider named Smokey Joe. From the era when Hollywood often found adventure and romance in The Painted Veil, The Good Earth and other tales set in the exotic Far East comes Roar of the Dragon. Richard Dix stars as a booze-swigging riverboat captain who takes on the burden of commanding Westerners holed up in a Manchurian hotel that's surrounded by a horde of murderous Tartar bandits. The able cast includes Edward Everett Horton, playing against type in heroic sequences far removed from his familiar light comedies.

• western